


Presenting Pack

by Solemini (SoleminiSanction)



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Young Justice (Comics), Young Justice - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, No Sex, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pack Dynamics, Protective Bruce Wayne, Protective Team, Team as Family, Wholesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 11:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18314522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoleminiSanction/pseuds/Solemini
Summary: Happily, the heats of pubescent omegas were shorter, less common and less severe than those of the sexually mature. This did not, however, make them any more pleasant to suffer through in the moment.





	Presenting Pack

**Author's Note:**

> Conjured up from a delightful discussion on the "Capes & Coffee" Discord. (Link to be inserted when Discord stops being a pain)

Happily, the heats of pubescent omegas were shorter, less common and less severe than those of the sexually mature. From presentation to their early twenties, most omegas only had to deal with three or four heats a year, which took the form of something between menstruation and the flu for the rough equivalent of a long weekend. Compared to their adult cycles, these brief, infrequent bouts would someday become almost relaxing memories.

This did not, however, make them any more pleasant to suffer through in the moment.

 

* * *

 

  
“This sucks,” Robin groaned, burrowing down through the layers of sheets, quilts and scavenged laundry.

Empress grumbled her agreement, lighting the last of the herbal beeswax candles she’d placed around the room. At some point in the last few months, their cycles had synched and, apparently, decided that the best time to practice for hypothetical future baby-making was right in the middle of a YJ weekend.

Once the wick caught flame, she shook out the match, tossed it out with the rest, and slumped over the back of a couch into the nest they’d made by pushing two of them together face-to-face. Tim lifted an arm when she shoved him, dragging up the blankets and inviting her into the warmth.

Anita always smelled good, a heady mix of perfume, hair oil and the wood smoke she burned for her rituals. But as the rising hormones heightened his senses, Tim was better able to appreciate the nuance in her efforts, and how well the beauty routine complemented her natural scent. His own odor couldn’t be nearly as good, as he hadn’t put in the effort, but Anita didn’t seem to care as she burrowed right in to his personal space. She draped a silk scarf (which had apparently belonged to her mother) across the limited space between them and breathed deep.

Tim echoed her sentiments with a tight, cat-like stretch, the mixed sensation of comfort-packmate-nest muffling his aches and fever. The sweatshirt he wore was the perfect size too big — it had belonged to Dick in college — and the old t-shirt underneath still smelled of Bruce. Bab’s sweater, one of Alfred’s silk pocket-squares, and his dad’s Gotham Knights cap were all mixed somewhere into the nest, along with clothes or bedsheets stolen from the rest of YJ. Anita wore Slobo’s tattered band shirt, with a pair of her dad’s socks tucked into the pocket of loose sweats she’d apparently gotten from Agent Maad. They’d even collected a few dryer sheets that managed to hold a bit of Secret’s smoke.

All that, along with the herbs and the midol, would probably knock them both out before the end of the hour, but Tim forced himself to stay awake long enough to nudge Anita with his knuckles and quip, “Are your menses this bad?”

Anita snorted, dragging a pillow from behind her to whack him with. “No, obviously. Boys are so clueless.”

“Ouch.” Tim chuckled, half-assing an attempt to grab the pillow and failing spectacularly. “You need anything else? Water, snacks, something to read…?”

“How ‘bout quiet?” She beaned him again, only to release the pillow and manhandle him onto his back. Tim rolled with it, though he didn’t quite get what she was doing until she sprawled atop him like a jaguar across a branch. Elevated by the fever, her body heat feels amazing against him, especially at the point where she’s pressed their cores together. Between that, her weight, and the sheer concentration of pack in their HQ, it was far better than any hot water bottle.

He groaned. ‘Nita answered with a purr, letting her limbs tangle loosely around his legs and head, and rested her chin alongside his.

No doubt, one or more of his limbs would be numb before the end of the afternoon, but Tim found that he didn’t much care.

 

* * *

 

  
When Batman got word of Robin’s unexpected heat, he didn’t drop everything to go fetch him, but it was a near thing. Legal definitions of the Wayne pack be damned, the boy was his partner, under his protection, and his alpha instincts refused to leave him out in the wild when he should be at home and secure under the pack’s watchful eye.

Less than an hour after wrapping up his last W.E. meeting, Batman landed his plane out back of the former resort and made his way in through one of the rear doors. The building was silent — a rare occurrence on these weekends — and the sun was still high and bright, so he made no move to conceal his actions as he stepped into the kitchen and set a course for the building’s heart, where even the newest omegas would feel the most safe.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Batman stopped and glanced back to find Snapper Carr at the kitchen table, chewing away on a crisp, crunchy sandwich. That Bruce had stormed past without so much as a glance was testament to either his laser focus, Snapper’s secret power to blend in to any background, or possibly both.

They stared at each other, Batman waiting for Snapper to elaborate on his outburst, but the YJ “chaperone” seemed in no mood to divulge further. He took another large bite, gnawed his way through all three letters of the BLT, and raised an eyebrow at the infamous Bat as though daring him to inquire.

He did not. After their tense silence, he turned on his heel and continued on, heavy cape sweeping the floor behind him.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Snapper drawled after him, but made no effort to move from either his seat or his sandwich as the kitchen door swung closed.

Batman followed the mixed scent of young omega up the central stairs, ignoring the brief barrage of buffeting winds that indicate an unseen speedster has darted within inches of him at least three times. He second-guessed this choice only when he arrived at the final turn in the hall to find his path cut off by something like a blockade.

Wonder Girl led the charge, flanked on either side by Impulse and Slobo to form an alpha wall that spanned the hall’s width. Secret — who had, so far as anyone could tell, no presentation, for all that she had attempted to play alpha to Robin’s omega — loomed ominously behind them, filling in what space remained with her vaporous form. Superboy, the surprise beta, hung back further still, only just visible through Secret’s haze. Arms crossed, he leaned against a certain door — no doubt where Robin and Empress had chosen to nest — with a nonchalance that did not extend to his wary eyes.

Batman stopped and narrowed the eyes behind his cowl. Wonder Girl rose from the floor until she could look him dead in the eye and growled.

“Get. Out.”

And Batman, in his surprised, blinked first.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t known that Cassandra Sandsmark was an alpha; he’d updated her file himself as soon as she presented. But it had never fully registered in his mind until this moment, when he found himself staring down a child _in pigtails_ who looked ready to abandon all of her Amazon training and go straight for his throat if her orders were challenged.

Her threat was handily backed up by the alpha males at her side, though both remained on the ground and were a good head-and-a-half shorter than Batman even accounting for their hairstyles. Bart Allen’s orientation had surprised the entire League, yet here he lived up to the role with aplomb, his stance utterly still as he glared through his goggles, fists clenched at his side. In contrast, Slobo — as could only be expected from Lobo-spawn — had been, for lack of a better word, born more alpha than humans could properly register. Yet there was no hint of anything but complete trust between him and Wonder Girl; he stood a half-step behind where she hovered and cracked his bare knuckles with a sound like snapping chains.

Batman absorbed all this in just a few seconds. Then he set his jaw and squared his shoulders, exuding the presence that had so often driven fear into the hearts of alphas twice this pup’s age. “Step aside.”

Impulse snorted. “Why don't you make us?”

Wonder Girl made no move to reprimand her second, only tightened her fists in silent support of his challenge. Her eyes blazed like bottled lightning. Batman matched her, glare for glare.

“I’m here to take Robin home.”

“No,” she said. “You agreed, you _all_ agreed when we moved in here. This is our time, our team, our _den_ , and you are not welcome.”

“An Omega in heat should be with his pack.”

“He is,” hissed Secret, with an unsettling echo in her tone. “They are.”

Slobo grunted an affirmation. Behind them all, Superboy shifted to settle his whole weight more firmly against the door.

“We’re handling it,” said Wonder Girl firmly. “If you were anyone else, we’d have you halfway to Poughkeepsie by now. But…” She broke their gaze long enough to take a deep, steadying breath. Someday, Batman would have speak with Diana about comparing the Amazonian techniques to those he’d learned as a young man. When Wonder Girl glanced up again, some tension had eased but her stance remained firm. “If we fight, it would upset Robin. And none of us want that. Do we?”

Lips pressed into a thin line, Batman glanced over the motley crew gathered against him and considered his options.

 

* * *

 

  
“They’re _pack bonding_!”

Batman grunted his agreement, keeping one eye on his autopilot controls and the other on the small screen onto which Nightwing’s video call was projected. Oracle likewise cooed over their shared commlink, having no doubt retrieved the resort’s security footage from multiple angles besides the one he’d requested.

“Aw, they grow up so fast.”

“I have to send this to Donna. She’s going to be so proud.”

Another grunt, this one more because Bruce knew he couldn’t stop Dick even if he tried.

It was not unheard of for childhood friends to form pack-like bonds after their presentations, but for it to come so easily and so strongly to a group with such a high alpha concentration was unusual, particularly under an alpha female and especially since Arrowette’s retirement often left them with only Superboy as a confirmed beta.

But then again, perhaps it was only to be expected. Young Justice had not only gone hunting together, they’d been hunted together, multiple times on both counts. They’d traveled to space, rallied in repeated defense of their own, been lost behind enemies lines and depended on each other through more desperation than most teens could even imagine. Their bonds of friendship and otherwise had long been forged in fire. Was it then such a surprise that they should bond as pack-mates too?

Still…

“The nesting area is secure?” he grumbled, reminding Oracle of the reason he had called.

Barbara chuckled, though he could hear her fingers flying across the keys. “Completely. With a guard like that, it might even be safer than the Batcave.”

He scowled. Sometimes, her teasing cut a bit close.

“Unclench, Alpha,” Dick soothed down the line, his voice lilting to those sing-song notes that had worked wonders since the beta was a child. “The pup is safe. Our little omega’s all cozy-warm and protected. You couldn’t ask for better.”

Batman answered in a final grunt, this time one of acceptance. If he hadn’t thought the same, he never would have left without Robin in the first place.

“Besides,” added Oracle. “The nesting footage is even cuter. Dick, you need to see these…”

Bruce kept a fond eye-roll to himself and reduce the call’s volume to low, letting his eldest pack-mates’ voices hum reassuringly in the background as he set a return course for Gotham.

 

* * *

 

Back at the resort, Secret slipped unseen through the crack under the nesting room door and let her ephemeral form float up to the ceiling. Below, snug in their nest, the pack’s omegas were fast asleep, seemingly oblivious to the entire confrontation. Anita had pillowed her cheek on Robin’s shoulder, her face turned into the small of his throat where the scent was, supposedly, strongest. In his sleep, Robin had turned slightly her way, his far arm draped loosely across her waist as he drooled onto the couch.

Secret drifted closer, giving her hand just enough form to brush the hair from Robin’s eyes. The others had tried to explain to her why omegas liked companions for their heats, something about scent-hormone feedback loops and a time when packs with dozens of members had been the norm. But seeing Robin’s face, more relaxed and free than she’d ever witnessed before, made her believe it.

Not for the first time and not for the last, she wished for truer senses than what the dead like her were allowed. That she could grow up with her dearest friends and share in these strange changes, be a true part of the pack.

But dwelling would only disappoint her. She lifted a quilt from among the cluttered nest, draped it over the sleeping omegas, and tucked them both in, letting her fingers linger ever so briefly against the warm, feverish skin of their jaws.

She bid them both sweet dreams, then paused long enough to set a calming CD in the player before exiting through the vents. Now that their well-meaning intruder had been expelled, the rest of the pack was re-convening for a Wendy marathon, and she didn’t want to miss a second.


End file.
